


Breathless

by rosweldrmr



Category: The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M, Gen, Nerds in Love, inaccurate science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosweldrmr/pseuds/rosweldrmr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth sat in her launch seat, harnessed in and white knuckled. No one spoke. | 'Missing scene' where we see the crew mourn, Johanssen and Beck get closer, and Martinez's super-heated bunk makes its debut appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

“Preparing to break orbit.” Martinez's voice crackled through the ship radio.

Beth sat in her launch seat, harnessed in and white knuckled. Hermes used ion engines instead of traditional point thrust ships, which meant that most of the time their acceleration was gradual. About two millimeters per second per second. But breaking a planetary orbit took significantly more force, so the Hermes was equipped with thrusters for such an occasion.

It was the only time they had a use the launch seats. And since they only used them twice a trip, strapping in always made Beth nervous.

No one spoke. To her left, she could see the profile of Beck's face. This expression was grim. Beth tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the empty flight seat behind her. Tried not to imagine Watney sitting there, bitching about scrubbing the mission early, trying to scheme up ways they could stay longer.

A strangled sob escaped her throat before she even realized she was crying.

“Johanssen,” Beck called softly. Beth couldn't bring herself to look at him. She knew she wasn't helping anything. Everyone was already devastated. The last thing they needed was her crying. But she couldn't stop. In fact, the harder she tried to stop, the worse it got.

Huge globs of tears clung to the skin under her eyes. She held her breath and bit her lip and squeezed her arm rest but still couldn't stop.

“Johanssen,” commander Lewis called from the seat ahead of her.

“Yes, commander?” Beth called, trying desperately to keep her voice even. Beck tossed her a towel and Beth pressed it gently to her face, to absorb her tears.

“I'm reading an error with Hermes, code 67-W23.”

Whatever Beth had been expecting Lewis to say, it wasn't that. Immediately her brain jumped into problem solving mode as she tucked the now-damp towel into her harness. As the ship’s programmer, any computer errors were reported to her. If this was a major issue, it could delay the launch and Vogel and NASA would need to recalculate the orbital path for Hermes. “Just a sec,” she called, trying to remember what the code meant. There were 10,000 possible error codes and Beth had memorized them all. They were based on a numbering convention. A ‘6’ series meant a temperature issue. ‘7’ second-series were internal sensors. ‘W’ indicated it was a minor issue. “One of the internal sensors is reporting a high temperature from the bunks. Martinez's.”

“Wonderful.” Martinez said.

“Not mission critical. It shouldn't delay the launch, but I'll take a look at it once we're in motion. It's probably just a faulty sensor.” Beth reassured him.

“First thing,” Lewis said. “Flight is go,” she announced.

Martinez started the procedure for launch, calling out checks. And this was all just instinct now. They'd done this in simulations a million times. Lewis called 'clear' after each indicator.

Beth turned to look at Beck, as was her habit when they were strapped in. Seeing him made her less nervous. She tried not to think about why that was. She knew any fraternization was strictly prohibited. But that didn't mean that she couldn't take comfort in him being there.

When she looked at him, though, he was smiling softly. Feeling self conscious, Beth blushed and mouthed 'what?'.

He just shook his head and smiled a little wider. It wasn’t exactly a joyful smile, she could still see the pain in his eyes as he tried to keep himself from looking at the empty seat behind her. But she felt a little better, seeing Beck smile.

“Prepare for trust in 3... 2... 1. Mark.” Martinez announced and Beth shut her eyes tightly. She hated this part.

There was a loud roar that ripped through the ship. Followed immediately by a steady rumble that culminated in a hard jolt that pushed her back into her seat, with some ungodly amount of force. The burn was short but intense. And in 2 minutes, the engines went silent and Beth felt the air return to her lungs.

In unison, they all unbuckled and started the post launch checks. Beth opened her computer and ran the thrust check program. “Clear.” She called right on queue when Martinez asked for her status.

“All clear,” Lewis declared and floated back, towards the Rec. “Check that error,” she reminded Beth as she passed.

“Yes ma'am.”

“What was that about?” She whispered to Beck as she headed towards the bunks to check on the error.

“Nothing,” he said, smiling.

“No, what?” She challenged, her chin jut out with indignation. He laughed and Beth blushed.

“It's good to see you smile.” He whispered as all the humor drained away from his face and was instead replaced with such an intense sincerity, Beth had to turn away.

It left her breathless.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I took a LOT of liberties with Hermes design and launch procedure. In all reality, they probably didn't have to use thrusters at all. They could have achieved escape velocity with the engines a little at a time, hence the 24 hour window to leave orbit after a scrubbed mission. But I just had this vision in my head of this scene, so forgive me Mr. Weir.


End file.
